Michael Mancil Brown Charged In Mitt Romney Tax Returns Scheme

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Former Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivers remarks during the second day of the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) March 15, 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A Tennessee man was charged Wednesday in a scheme involving former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's income tax returns during the 2012 campaign.

The U.S. Justice Department said a federal grand jury in Nashville indicted Michael Mancil Brown, 34, of Franklin, and charged him with six counts of wire fraud and six counts of extortion.

Brown is accused of having an anonymous letter delivered to the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP accounting firm in Franklin last August, demanding that $1 million in digital currency be deposited to a Bitcoin account to keep some of Romney's income tax returns from being released. The Justice Department said Brown falsely claimed that he had gained access to the PricewaterhouseCoopers internal computer network and stolen tax documents for Romney and his wife, Ann Romney, for tax years before 2010.

A phone number listed for Brown had a message saying it was not receiving incoming calls. He did not immediately return an email message sent Wednesday evening.

The letter said interested parties who wanted the purportedly stolen returns released could contribute $1 million to another Bitcoin account. Bitcoin is a hard-to-trace form of electronic cash.

The Justice Department statement said similar letters were delivered to Democratic and Republican party offices in Franklin.

The letters claiming two decades' worth of the Romneys' tax returns had been stolen came amid last year's Republican and Democratic conventions.

At the time, Romney had steadfastly declined to release more than one year of tax returns, for 2010, and Democrats were trying to portray him as so wealthy he was out of touch with middle-class voters. Last fall, Romney also released his income tax returns for 2011.

Computer thumb drives were delivered with the demand. The letter said the tax returns delivered on the thumb drives were encrypted and more copies would be sent to "all major news media outlets" with the passwords to be released if payment wasn't made.

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Donald James Smith, Charged In Cherish Perrywinkle's Kidnapping, Murder, Has Long Criminal History

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The Florida man accused of kidnapping and murdering an 8-year-old has a criminal history of child abuse that goes back decades.

Donald James Smith, 56, allegedly abducted Cherish Perrywinkle from a Jacksonville Walmart Friday night. The girl's body was found the next day in a wooded area in the same city.

In 2009, Smith was convicted of attempting to take another young girl. On Sunday, Stephanie Thornton told Action News JAX about the incident, in which he tried to kidnap her own daughter.

Smith called the girl's grandmother, pretending to be a Department of Children and Families employee. He claimed that the 9-year-old had been raped and that he needed to meet her at McDonald's "to pick her up to take her to be checked," Thornton told the station.

Suspecting he was a fake, Thornton contacted police and Smith was arrested. In 2012, he pleaded guilty to attempted impersonation of a public employee and attempted child abuse. He was released from jail on May 31, just 21 days before he allegedly kidnapped Perrywinkle.

The morning of the day Perrywinkle vanished, Jacksonville deputies conducted a monthly address check at Smith's home, as is required for registered sex offenders, News 13 reported.

Thornton did not know Smith had been released, and is incensed that he had the opportunity to harm another child.

"He needs to be electrocuted. He should never be able to get back out, never," she told Action News JAX.

The 2009 incident was not the first time Smith broke the law. Smith has been a registered sex offender since 1993, when he tried to lure three young girls into his pornography-filled van, Fox 30 WAWS reported. He spent five years in prison on an attempted kidnapping conviction.

Before that, Smith was convicted in 1977 for lewd and lascivious behavior on a child under 16.

Smith is currently being held without bail for Cherish Perrywinkle's abduction and murder. He allegedly befriended Perrywinkle's mother, Rayne Perrywinkle, Friday evening when she had trouble affording a new dress for Cherish at a Dollar General store.

The mother and her three children, including Cherish, went with Smith to the Jacksonville Walmart, where he said he would buy the family food and clothing. After spending a couple of hours at Walmart, Smith disappeared with Cherish. Her mother called police after realizing her daughter was missing.

Smith pleaded not guilty on Sunday. His next court date is July 16.